Depicted in the video above is a computer numerical controlled (CNC) machine hard at work drawing other machines. A project developed by Pittsburgh-based spatial-artist Pablo Garcia, the machine’s task was to draw twelve different pictures of historical drawing machines.

A professor of architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, Garcia also runs a collaborative and multidisciplinary studio called POiNT. There he guides teams through experiments in spatial architecture design that are unique and interesting. His work has included creating a proposal to develop a media park out of the one-acre large rooftop of the US Steel Tower. He and his team created a landscape where residents of the building could go to view three large media screens at night, and have a comforting park during the day. His passion for intertwining media with art is apparent in this project and several others, so it’s no surprise that he was inspired to tackle a CNC project.

Garcia decided to pick out twelve scenes of cutting edge technologies for their time periods. Modern day viewers will consider them quaint and dated considering the technology we are surrounded with today, but for their contemporary consumers, they certainly seemed brilliant. Take for example the “Profile Machine” pictured below. A design that allowed artists to trace a subject’s face easily, it promised to make any artist an instant success in the early 1800’s. I liken ideas like this to the get-rich quick infomercials of today.

Garcia most likely spent hours programming the CNC machine to reach the level of detail pictured in the final images. Obviously the video is sped-up a bit for visual enjoyment, so it’s safe to assume that each drawing took quite a while to complete.